Page 76

“Thank you, Miss Clark,” said Mr. Colden in a strangled voice. “If I might call Mr. Richard Croucher to the stand. . . .”

Alexander watched intently as a tall, thin man rose from the benches. He was dressed with continental care, his cravat tied in an intricate arrangement, his waistcoat of floral brocade. His hair was dark, his features thin and angular. He was not a particularly handsome man—one might go so far as to call him ill-favored—but his clothes and bearing gave him a certain air.

This, then, was the mysterious Mr. Croucher who had been so busy about town spreading rumors of the guilt of Levi Weeks—the man whom Levi had caught embracing Elma the week before she died. The man who might implicate Elias Ring as her murderer, if pressed the right way.

Mr. Croucher bowed to the judges in their robes, as if they were meeting at an assembly, and not a trial for murder. “May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, I was a lodger but not a boarder in Mrs. Ring’s house. I remained at the house all the time of Mrs. Ring’s absence and paid particular attention to the behavior of the prisoner and the deceased, and I was satisfied from what I saw, there was a warm courtship going on.”

“When you say a warm courtship, Mr. Croucher . . .”

Mr. Croucher shook his head, as though it pained him to proceed. “I have known the prisoner at the bar to be with the deceased Elma Sands, in private frequently and all times of night. I knew him to pass two whole nights in her bedroom.”

This was more to the taste of the crowd. The people who had begun to slump in their benches sat up straighter.

Mr. Croucher leaned forward, drawing the whole room into his confidence. “Once, lying in my bed, which stood in the middle of the room and in a posture which was favorable to see who passed the door, and which I assumed on purpose—I had some curiosity—I saw the prisoner at the bar come out of her room and pass the door in his shirt only, to his own room. Once, too, at a time when they were less cautious than usual, I saw them in a very intimate situation.”

“Seducer!” someone shouted at Levi. “Murderer!”

Alexander thought he saw a hint of a smile play about Mr. Croucher’s lips before it was hastily replaced with an expression of carefully cultivated sorrow.

“Did you ever tell anyone of this?” asked Mr. Colden.

“I never took notice of it to anyone.” It was not, Mr. Croucher’s manner seemed to imply, the occupation of a gentleman to inquire into the affairs of another.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Colden. “If the defense has any questions?”

“Pray, what countryman are you?” inquired Burr.

Mr. Croucher drew himself up. “An Englishman. I have been in this country since January 1799.”

Alexander wasn’t going to let Burr waste any more time on irrelevancies. “Where, sir, were you on the night of the twenty-second of December 1799?”

“I supped that night at Mrs. Ashmore’s—but that’s not her real name.” Mr. Croucher allowed himself a slight smirk. “It is 884 Bowery Lane. It was the birthday of her son. She has had a good deal of my money, and I thought I would go and sup with her.”

“Did you go anywhere else that evening?”

Mr. Croucher gave an elegant shrug. “I crossed twice or three times from Greenwich Street to Broadway and was once at the Coffee House. I went out to the Bowery and returned to Mrs. Ring’s.”

A busy man, Mr. Croucher. A busy man and a strangely precise one. “What time did you return home that night?”

“It was my agreement with Mrs. Ring to be home at ten o’clock of nights, but on this occasion I stayed out until eleven or half past eleven.”

“Do you know where the Manhattan Well is?”

“I do.” Suddenly, Mr. Croucher was a great deal less talkative.

“Did you pass by it that evening?”

“I did not—I wish I had.” Mr. Croucher arranged his sharp features into an expression of wistful regret. “I might, perhaps, have saved the life of the deceased.”

He was lying; Alexander was sure of it. He would stake his reputation that Mr. Croucher had passed by the well that night. “Have you not said you did?”

Something flickered behind Mr. Croucher’s eyes. “No. I might have said I wished I had.”

“Have you ever had a quarrel with the prisoner at the bar?”

“I bear him no malice,” Mr. Croucher said guardedly.

“But have you ever had any words with him?”